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Intel has been a pioneer in launching technologies that are way ahead of times. While its rival AMD, despite its much smaller size, has been challenging Intel with it processors that are gaining steady market acceptance. After AMD's Turion 64x2 and Intel's Core 2 Duo, which happened last year, there has not been any major technology update or a new product. Finally, Intel has broken the brief silence and created the adrenaline rush this time with its brand new Core 2 Duo update processor.

This next generation Intel's Centrino processor technology is code named Santa Rosa. It comprises of Core 2 Duo, a mobile Intel 965 express chipset and wireless N standard among numerous value additions that hastens the mobile computing experience by many times, claims Intel. One of the key innovations in Santa Rosa is the optional 'turbo memory'. By using this technology, users would be able to access frequently used software applications twice as fast and reduce the amount of time it takes to turn on or boot-up a laptop by as much as 20%. This, in turn, saves power consumption and increase battery life.

New Chip on the Block
Taking a brief historical perspective over the last two years, the processor landscape has undergone a sea change. Much of Intel's aggression by rolling out new processor technologies also owes its origin to the emergence of competition mainly by AMD, which took the lead in launching the Turion 64-bit processor. At the time when analysts were pondering about Intel's next move and AMD's prospects in taking on the giant, Intel unveiled its 'Core' architecture in 2005 end, and launched the industry's first dual core processor-a processor with two cores. Probably that was a turning point in mobile computing as Intel's Core Duo chips brought in new degree of power and performance on to the notebooks. It's a logical evolution, like Centrino, which recycled Pentiums in 2003 and in a similar fashion Core Duo chips took mobile computing to whole new levels.

Both Intel and AMDs new processors are aimed at bringing notebooks that are able to churn out more computing power and the punch line they adopted is 'more performance per watt'. These processors are designed for energy efficiency to enable better battery life. As a result, if we take for instance, Intel's ultra low voltage (ULV) processors on the Core family, it would be able to give a battery back up of about eight hours. If we take a closer look at the newly launched Santa Rosa, it has several added features as compared to the existing Core 2 Duo chip. The biggest refinement as per Intel is the 800 MHz front side bus (FSB) as compared to the 667 MHz in previous ones. This new FSB is expected to speed up the overall system performance.

Intel also says that users will experience improved performance when running multiple applications simultaneously such as downloading a video clip while doing a virus scan. Additional power management features will continue to enable users to have bigger battery life. Ramamurthy Sivakumar, MD, Intel South Asia says, "When we introduced Intel Centrino four years ago, we changed the computing landscape with our mobile innovations. Now with Santa Rosa, we have improved virtually all aspects of Intel-based notebooks, the most popular and fastest growing computing market segment in the world."

These processors are designed for energy efficiency to enable better battery life. It would be able to give a battery back up of about eight hours

Market Focus
The Santa Rosa platform is broken into two product lines. The Centrino Duo will go for consumer notebooks while business class notebook PCs will sport Centrino Pro branding. However, both the platforms will be based on the Core 2 Duo processor. Centrino Pro will be a brand specifically for the business user and the fundamental difference comes in for the first time with Intel extending its vPro technology to the notebook environment. Centrino Pro processor technology will adopt the innovative and popular features found in desktop business PCs today with vPro processor technology. IT departments will be able to reliably manage both desktops and notebooks and deal with what plagues them most-security threats, cost of ownership, resource allocation, and asset management. All this can be done wirelessly as IT managers will get the same active management technology till now available only on vPro desktop environments.

According to Reuben Tan, research manager, Personal Systems, IDC Asia Pacific, "Intel's Centrino Pro processor technology now allows the inherent benefits of Intel vPro processor technology to be implemented in a mobile solution. Built-in features like remote management could potentially reduce infrastructure downtime and cost, in a form factor traditionally harder to keep tabs on due to the portable nature of notebooks."

India's Contribution
If we look at some of the processor launches made by Intel in the recent past, a significant aspect relates to Intel India's contribution in making the processors market ready. In the case of Santa Rosa also, the Intel India Development Centre (IIDC) in Bangalore has played a significant role. IIDC's Mobile Platforms Group worked on platform development areas such as Intel turbo memory software validation, customer reference board design, basic input output system (BIOS) development and support, platform electrical, thermal and battery life analysis. Meanwhile the Chipset Group worked on key elements of the chipset software: drivers for Microsoft Windows Vista and graphics and display drivers. IIDC also provided critical hardware and software applications engineering support to Intel OEMs and ODMs in Asia Pacific and Japan to ensure readiness to launch their platforms along with Intel.

Shrikanth G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in

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